


Portraits

by 6KaraEliza6



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 06:05:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15880059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/6KaraEliza6/pseuds/6KaraEliza6
Summary: A baseball cap turned upside down was presented in front of Billy. Christmas was in two  weeks and his art teacher thought it would be a wonderful idea to have everyone in class draw a name of one of their fellow classmates, and they’d have to do a self portrait of said person. Which meant, inevitably, he’d be giving someone a shitty drawing, they’d be absolutely unimpressed with.





	Portraits

A baseball cap turned upside down was presented in front of Billy. Christmas was in two weeks and his art teacher thought it would be a wonderful idea to have everyone in class draw a name of one of their fellow classmates, and they’d have to do a self portrait of said person. Which meant, inevitably, he’d be giving someone a shitty drawing, they’d be absolutely unimpressed with. Billy had been forced into this class since it was the only extracurricular that wasn’t full. Shocker. 

Billy reached into the hat and he pulled a name out. Carol. Oh. That would be easy enough. He could half ass his way through this, and she wouldn’t care. 

He yanked a sheet of paper out of his sketch book and he got to work. He started with her face shape. He scribbled around it for her hair, added a skinny neck, and big eyes. He drew a thin line for a mouth and he called it quits after twenty minutes.He scrawled her name on it and he shoved it into his backpack to give to her in a few days so it wouldn’t seem that half-assed. 

He wondered who got his name. He scanned the room. Most everybody had been awkwardly hunched over there desks, working. A lot of people were staring right at the people they got, so it was incredibly obvious. For example, Carol was staring dead on at this nerdy girl from one of his other classes. The girl looked uncomfortable. But nobody was looking at him. It bothered him in more ways than one.

Unbeknownst to him, however, a girl behind him was busily sketching away. 

 

———

A week and a half later and people started giving their portraits to each other. Carol gave the nerdy girls hers. It was practically a stick figure. This gave him zero remorse about the pitiful drawing he produced of her. He gave it to her while she talked to someone else she they wouldn’t have to talk long. He honestly could not stand her. 

“Oh my gooodness Billy! Thank you so much!” She gushed shallowly.

“It’s no problem Carol.” Billy put on his best charming smile before heading back to his desk. Fake cows like her weren’t worth his time.

He found himself looking around, willing people to look at him, waiting for it to register on someone’s face that he was the person they were supposed to give a portrait to. But it was to not avail. He didn’t receive anything that day either.

He didn’t care. Not a bit. It’s not like he hadn’t received a thought out gift in years. Or a gift in general. Not counting the twenty dollar bill Susan would give him, that his father would make him spend on a gift for Max instead. He’d say it was from him and not Billy. He didn’t care. Not one bit. 

After school got out at the end of the day, he smoked a cigarette like normal, then he and max started their usual drive home. Max hummed Christmas carols under her breath. He didn’t know why it made him so angry. Christmas normally made him less pissed off, in fact he normally didn’t care for the festivities at all, but all he wanted to do was beat something. Maybe he’d gotten his hopes up a little. Maybe he’d thought about someone giving him a heartfelt drawing of himself that’d make him actually, genuinely happy. But why the hell should he have that? Why should he get gifts, or a nice peaceful holiday? Why should he get to relax in the presence of his father while they were all forced around the Christmas tree?

Max hummed slightly louder, and he snapped. He didn’t mean to, he really didn’t. He whipped around directly to her face.

“Shut the HELL up Max,” he yelled in her face, before focusing back to the road. He knew he’d startled her and hurt her. He didn’t care. 

———

It was the day before the Christmas holiday began, and Billy still hadn’t received any portrait.

Whoever got his name must have skipped the assignment. A burning anger simmered within him all day. 

When the final bell rang at the end of the day, he headed to his locker to put his shit up. When he opened his locker, a rolled up piece of paper fell out. He picked it up, with his eyebrow arched in confusion. Who the hell opened his locker? He unrolled the piece of paper, and was met with a detailed, and spot on drawing of himself. It looked exactly like him. It was him, chest up, smoking a cigarette. His eyes were closed, he had on his denim jacket on. He was floored. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. He glanced at the corner of the paper, and he saw a small note scrawled at the bottom, on a post-it note.

Sorry it took so long! Merry Christmas Billy Hargrove.  
-Robin

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first story so I know it’s super cruddy but I’m working on it! Either way I hope you enjoyed!


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